Notification Content and Behavior
Content of incident notifications sent via email, SMS, phone call and push
PagerDuty users receive notifications related to incident response, on-call handoffs and test notifications during onboarding. Depending on your pricing plan’s features, users also receive notifications when someone adds them as a responder to an incident, when status updates publish, or when someone adds a conference bridge to an incident. PagerDuty sends notifications via the following channels:
Email Notifications
Source: [email protected]
PagerDuty Action | Subject Line | Body |
---|---|---|
A new incident is triggered and the user is on call |
| “Hello
* This will be the same as the Details field in an incident. |
The user has been added as a responder (brand new incident) | “PagerDuty response requested by | “ |
The user has been added as a responder (existing incident) | “PagerDuty response requested by | “ |
Status Update to an incident that a user is assigned to or subscribed to | “[PagerDuty Status] | " Opened on Updates: Assigned to |
The user is going on call for an escalation policy | "[PagerDuty] | " Escalation Policy:
Override here: Times in Manage my on-call: Unsubscribe: ===
|
The user is going off call for an escalation policy | "[PagerDuty] | "As of Escalation Policy: Times in Manage my on-call: Unsubscribe: ===
|
| "PagerDuty Test Notification for | "Hi! This is a PagerDuty test notification. If there was an incident in your system, this email would contain information about the problem and a link back to PagerDuty. It might look something like this: Incident #123 If you're on a mobile device and would like to download our mobile app, click this link: |
Can I enable or disable rich-text / HTML email notifications?
Yes. For each email address you have configured within your Contact Information, you can choose to receive HTML emails. If this option is unselected, basic text email notifications will be sent. To change this email setting, click your User Icon My Profile Contact Information next to your email address edit checkboxes based on your preferences.
Here is an example of a PagerDuty text-only email notification:


Here is an example of a PagerDuty HTML email notification:


When you receive a PagerDuty email notification, the Details section of each incident will be truncated to 500 characters. You can include clickable links in this truncated message. The rest of the email body can be accessed in PagerDuty within the incident logs and details or via the mobile app.
Attachments are stripped from PagerDuty email notifications and also from the incident logs. To view the original attachment, you will want to refer to the system that sent out the original attachment.
SMS Notifications
Source: Variable numbers or short codes from the PagerDuty Vcard.
PagerDuty Action | Body |
---|---|
A new incident triggers and the user is on call | “ALRT |
The user has been added as a responder (brand new incident) | “PagerDuty # |
The user has been added as a responder (existing incident) | “PagerDuty Alert. # |
Status update to an incident that a user is assigned to or subscribed to | "[PagerDuty] |
The user is going on call for an escalation policy | "Going on call on |
The user is going off call for an escalation policy | "Going off call on |
| "Hi, this is a PagerDuty test notification! Respond to incidents quickly & easily when you are on-call: download our mobile app now! https://pagerduty.com/mobile" |
All PagerDuty SMS notifications are truncated to meet the 160 character limit for text messages.
Here is an example of a PagerDuty SMS notification:


If multiple incidents are assigned to you, then PagerDuty will bundle all notifications into 1 SMS notification, listing out the incident numbers and giving you the option to only ack all or resolve all incidents at once.
Phone Notifications
Source: Variable numbers from the PagerDuty Vcard.
PagerDuty Action | Recorded Phone Message |
---|---|
A new incident triggers and the user is on call | “You have |
The user has been added as a responder (brand new incident) | “PagerDuty Alert. |
The user has been added as a responder (existing incident) | “PagerDuty Alert. |
Please read our article on Live Call Routing for more information on how Live Call Routing messages may be formatted.
Push Notifications
PagerDuty Action | Body |
---|---|
A new incident triggers and the user is on call | “ALRT |
The user has been added as a responder (brand new incident) | “PagerDuty |
The user has been added as a responder (existing incident) | " |
Status Update to an incident that a user is assigned to or subscribed to | "PD |
The user is going on call for an escalation policy | "Going on call on |
The user is going off call for an escalation policy | "Going off call on |
Here is an example of a PagerDuty push notification:


Notification Bundling
Given that notification volume in some cases can increase to 100 notifications in a minute, we calibrate our policies to prevent alert fatigue. Notification bundling is the incident summary we switch to when multiple simultaneous incidents are triggered and assigned to a user. PagerDuty rolls together or bundles these multiple notifications into a single summarizing notification, regardless of your notification method (phone, SMS, email, or push). All incidents that are in the triggered state (i.e. not acknowledged or resolved) will be included in the bundled notification.
The following are examples of how each contact method will notify you, in the event of near-simultaneous incidents. For this example, assume 5 incidents have been triggered on a service named "Nagios-Shopping-Cart" within a 1-minute time frame.
Phone
You have 5 triggered incidents on Nagios-Shopping-Cart. Press 4 to acknowledge all incidents. Press 6 to resolve all incidents. Press 0 for help or press * to repeat this message.
SMS
ALRT: #100,#101,#102,#103,#104 on Nagios-Shopping-Cart. Reply 14:Ack all, 16:Resolv all
Email
You are assigned 5 triggered incidents in PagerDuty:
Please visit the following URL to manage these incidents.
https://fake-name.pagerduty.com/dashboard
1) Incident #100
Opened on: Jan 1 at 12:00pm PST
Service: Nagios-Shopping-Cart
Description: Emergency in the server room
Link: https://fake-service.pagerduty.com/i/100
Another way to minimize the number of notifications that you receive is to adjust your notification rules so that you are notified of an incident several minutes after it is assigned to you as opposed to immediately after it is assigned to you. Adjusting the notification rules will allow more time for incidents to aggregate and you will receive fewer notifications during a high volume period.
Responding to SMS and Phone Notifications
Responding to an SMS Notification
To reply to an SMS notification you will reply with the unique code that is provided. Here is an example:


Responding to a Phone Notification
Please respond to a phone notification by replying with the number shared to:
- Acknowledge
- Resolve
- Escalate — if there is another level in your escalation policy
Responding from the Mobile Site or the App
See Responding to Incidents in the Mobile App.
Responding to an Email Notification
At this time it is not possible to acknowledge or resolve an incident via email. To take action for the open incident you must use the PagerDuty site or mobile app, or respond via an SMS notification or phone call you receive as described below.
Updated 7 days ago